The Great Flood of Calgary 2013

The flooding that occurred last week may be called the "Great Flood" because it was a 100 year flood, but believe me it was not so great! Many of our friends and neighbours had a basement or first floor full of flood water. Friends, Suzanne and Guy, will not be allowed back into their building for another month. Our community was not the only one hit hard by the flood. The entire province faces a decade long clean up with costs estimated up to $5 billion.

Jim and I were retuning home last Wednesday night when we noticed a sign on our street that said, "Elbow Drive closed due to flooding." What the? We walked down to the river path, four blocks from our house, where a ten foot high berm was being built. The city was hauling in dirt and piling it up along Elbow Drive. By Thursday afternoon, six neighbourhoods around us were under mandatory evacuation. In all, a total of 75,000 people would be evacuated from 24 neighbourhoods. Friends Deb and Les, whose house was hit hard by the flood, spent a couple of days with us and then moved further out to the suburbs so their little puppy, "Poppy," would have a yard to run in. That's right, I said, Poppy the puppy. They also had electricity and hot water out in the suburbs! Jim and I took showers at the Bodhi Tree yoga studio in Kensington during the seven day outage. Thank you, Bodhi Tree!  

The Elbow River crested early Friday morning and the Bow river crested Saturday. Residents started returning to their homes on Saturday. Jim and I helped friends clean out basements and first floors. Pretty much anything that was touched by the water was ruined. Friends who were impacted by the flood have an amazing spirit of resilience. They came back to their devastated homes and with friends and complete strangers started the clean up. The work went fairly quickly due to over 2,000 volunteers that showed up to shovel out basements, and tear out drywall, floorboards, carpet, cabinetry, etc. The piles of debris in front of houses was staggering. The piles were then loaded onto trucks and trailers and hauled away. Many hours of labor were provided by contractors and business's with heavy equipment. The cleanup and rebuilding will continue for quite sometime. I am proud to live in a community with this much community spirit and willingness to get down and dirty to "help a brother out!" Good on you, Calgary! Here is a link to some satellite pictures of the flooding. Anything you see that is brown is flood water.  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/29/calgary-flood-from-space-chris-hadfield_n_3523233.html

The pictures below are of friend's homes and streets in our neighbourhood. We were very, very lucky to have only been without electricity for a week. Our house did not flood.

Our favourite pub,"Joyce's," on the left where we have steak night every Thurs night.
Our home is only three blocks up this flooded street!

Our friends Guy and Suzanne still cannot move back into their building on 26th Ave.
Tall red brick building far left.

Our normally tranquil tributary, the Elbow River.

The Glencoe Club and surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Elbow river and the flooded Stampede grounds in the background.

Yes, this idiot went snorkling on 5th Street, three blocks from our house!

The 4th Street bridge under water.

Debris from up river caught under the 4th Street bridge.

Construction sight of million dollar condos. The penthouse sold for $8.4 million.

Same construction site, still wondering how the tower crane stood it's ground!?

Our friend Guy, in front of his and Suzanne's condo building. Three levels of parking beneath the building flooded.

Road Closed...?

Smart car....in the river...not so smart.

Apartments along the Elbow river.

Friend, Les, in his basement. Lots of demolition going on here.

Piles of basement debris in front of Deb and Les's house.

Streets in most neighbourhoods looked like this.

This girl was entertaining her work crew with some "down home" fiddling.

Suzanne and Candy at Judy and Jeff's house tearing out their wood floors.

Beauty brigade at Deb and Les's house. Those girls can work!

Looking down 4th Street towards the Elbow river.

Car under raging water on 21st Street.

More cars under water.

Flooded streets and alleys everywhere.

Flooding throughout Mission

Mercedes 6.3 AMG......OMG!

Good thing we moved! This is our old neighbourhood!

Les and Jim after a day working in the basement!